Climacophobia

A couple of Fridays ago, I fell down a flight of stairs outside 5 Degrees West - a pub in Falmouth. I bent back my thumb nail and bruised my knees and shins pretty badly. Sufficient time has passed that I can now think about it without a shudder. My bruised have almost healed and I think I have managed to halt the tide of irrational thoughts that were washing around my brain.
I remember talking to my friend at the top of the stairs, and then next thing being at the bottom of the stairs on my hands and knees. In the doggy position to be precise. Like I was waiting to be fucked by the stairs.

I was fine at first - adrenalin - but after a few minutes my legs started to really hurt, but that was not all.

I have a phobia of falling down stairs - Climacophobia as it is known. It is not your usual phobia of snakes, heights or spiders, but there it is. As the pain increased I started feeling really scared. I ended up at home in drunken tears wailing at my boyfriend. 'See I told you. I was right to be scared of stairs, THEY ARE OUT TO GET ME.'

Realising that I was being completely irrational did not stop the feelings. I could feel my sanity bend; my rational self, literally losing some of its grip on my mind.

Due to my sisters illness I have been around a lot of crazy people. Not just 'We drunk a whole bottle of sambuca' crazy, but 'God told me to jump on the bonnet of that car rip off the satan's eyebrows (aka windscreen wipers) ' crazy.

This has had its effects, some good, some not so good. I do fear having a breakdown, but it also means that I know mental illness is just an illness and one that people can recover from. It has taken me quite a few years to get my fear of a breakdown into perspective and the way I look at it now is that it could happen to me, but I don't think it is likely to.

It also means that I look after my mental health as seriously as I look after my physical health. If I have been working too hard and not sleeping and start getting a sore throat – I will take action – early nights, lemon & honey and heaps of fruit & veg.

If I start thinking stairs are REALLY out to get me, I take action. And in this case the action was to come straight home – spend time with Kai, relaxing, reading, sleeping and funnily enough lots of fruit and veg.

There is a big stigma around mental illness and I think this stigma has a lot to do with fear. People fear those with serious mental illness as they can be scary, irrational, violent, and extremely sad. But I think the fear also comes from a horror of ever being like that themselves.

But one thing I know is I've got to get over my fear of stairs – they aren't really out to get me.

dash it all

I used to be addicted to brackets. They were my way of throwing in little asides (like this) without interrupting the flow of the sentence.

But I have stowed by stash of brackets at the back of my writer’s tool box and taken up with the – far superior – dash.

I am not sure why this change has occurred - just as I am not sure really how to use a dash correctly. But now I know – and love – the dash.

The thing is my use of dashes is accelerating and soon everything I write will be – like – this – and – not make any – if at all – sense.

Happy f@ckin' birthday

This morning just before I woke up I asked K what time he needed to get to the airport

He replied, 'Blurrgghh?'

Well, I thought, if he's going to Poland he needs to get a move on. Then I woke up. It was 5:45 am.

It reminded me of a conversation we'd had with our friends L and J recently - sipping beers in NYC.

J had woken up the night before with night terrors convinced something terrible had happened to their delicious dog, Kitty. Fear not, the poodle was fine.

The conversation wandered onto 'funny things we've said when we were asleep.'

My 'stick it in your own eye' is my favourite (see earlier post) closely followed by shouting at an ex - who had the habbit of clamping the duvet and rolling over pulling it from my shivering body - 'You are not a fork and the duvet is not spaghetti.'

J said, that one night while almost asleep and with eyes closed L said,

'well don't you roll your eyes at me!'

But my favourite story of this kind was my friends N and Al – Al snores and sometimes N has to wake him up or roll him over to get back to sleep. On one such occasion, N was prodding Al when he rolled to face her with half opened eyes and growled,

'Happy fucking birthday.'

wake walking

This whole week I have been trying to be really disciplined and get into the mode of working 9 to 5 (what a way to make a living) but the distractions are just too numerous.

The three main culprits are:

- Youtube.com – curse your metal body. The whole internet is pretty frickin distracting. My friend Jon showed me a funny cartoon about this very situation (Jon where did you get that cartoon?)

- Daydreaming – I suppose this isn't too bad as to write one must dream or somesuch bullshit.

- wake walking – I have only just realised I do this. A few minutes ago I was working on research for chapter 4 and then a blank and then I found myself in my bedroom fiddling with the things on my dresser. I think I do this about four times a day. Just jumping up FOR NO REASON. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking OH I've got up to use to loo or to make a cup of tea.

Perhaps I have ants in my pants?

Don't get in a state...

Some of the things I learnt on a recent trip to USA

1. It is never OK to call nine eleven, seven eleven by mistake – ever.

2. Ask for the restroom or bathroom not toilet.

3. US toilets are lower and shallower than ours. I discovered this while wiping front to back – as I have been taught. For a second I dipped the back of my hand into the yellow water below. I did not do this again.

4. None of the Americans I met actually like Bush. Some train guys told us to 'give George a good kick up the but from us.' when we were travelling from NYC to DC.

5. Pancakes, bacon, home fries, huevos rancheros, pizza etc. are good and plentiful, so don't blame the washing machine if your trousers don't do up.

6. Hailing a cab in NYC involves almost standing in the path of moving traffic – kerb clingers don't get anywhere.

7. If someone asks you to be in a film, they are either street fundraisers or film students. Hopes should not be gotten up.

8. The subway is not as hard or complicated as it seems. Just leave plenty of time and don't get in the way of commuters. Remember if you need to stop, stand aside.

9. Filene's Basement rocks.